Closing ranks: Taunton's Our Lady of Lourdes prepares for influx of St. Mary's students

Friday

Apr 13, 2018 at 9:51 AMApr 13, 2018 at 3:42 PM

Charles Winokoor Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter @cwinokoor

TAUNTON – Student enrollment at St. Mary’s Primary School this past year was 133. At Our Lady of Lourdes School, Taunton’s other Pre-K-through-grade-five Catholic school, it was 142.

This is the last season for the former, which the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River is closing due to declining enrollment and outstanding debt.

And although the news in March came as a shock to many parents — some of whom themselves were former students at St. Mary’s — the fact is the Fall River Diocese for years has been closing and consolidating schools and churches in the region, as result of growing debt obligations and diminishing enrollment and membership.

Parents of students at St. Mary’s Primary School, with a history dating back 110 years, are now deciding whether to submit applications for their children to attend Our Lady of Lourdes, or to instead enroll them in a public school.

Pastor Tom Costa, who serves as head administrator of Our Lady of Lourdes School, says the 55-year-old building on First Street has enough room to accommodate students from both schools.

“There was a time when the school had 250 students,” he said.

Tuition and financial assistance

Costa also says less expensive tuition rates should help entice some St. Mary’s parents to choose Our Lady of Lourdes.

Total tuition, including fees for books, supplies and fundraising, this past year at Our Lady of Lourdes for students in kindergarten through grade five was $4,440 as compared to $5,464 at St. Mary’s.

Pre-K program tuition rates at the two schools were more closely comparable.

The goal, Costa said, is to ensure that the tradition of Catholic schooling, with its emphasis on service to others and religious faith, endures.

“I’m praying that we get a big enrollment,” he said.

And he says if that means Our Lady of Lourdes has to adjust in order to accommodate more students, then so be it.

“How do you get enrollment up if you’re turning students away?” Costa, 47, said.

“I’m very excited about the possibilities,” he added. “Both schools each had something special to offer, and combined it should be the best of both.”

What’s less certain is how many teaching, office and maintenance jobs will be lost as a result of St. Mary’s closure.

Costa said a decision will be issued May 10 by a hiring committee, on which he sits, that was formed by the Diocese to determine how many teachers and other personnel can be kept on.

Our Lady of Lourdes, he says, now has 12 teachers and a combined 10 teachers aides and substitute teachers.

St. Mary’s Primary School this past year, according to officials, employed nine full-time teachers, two full-time teachers aides, a part-time nurse, a librarian and four other part-time “specialists” who teach art, music, phys ed and a technology class.

Making the transition

Costa, along with Principal Mary Turner, is responsible for ensuring that his school is prepared to handle an influx of St. Mary’s students.

Whereas St. Mary’s is “a Diocese school” that operates under “the direct oversight of the Diocese,” he says Our Lady of Lourdes “is still a parish school that reports to the Diocese.”

As an administrator who works under the Bishop, Costa said, “I sign the checks and make decisions” as they pertain to day-to-day operations at the school.

He and his staff, he said, have been working overtime in recent weeks conducting meet-and-greet tours in the building for anxious parents whose children no longer will be able to attend St. Mary’s.

“Things are happening quickly day by day,” Costa said, adding that parents at both schools have generally been “nervous and upset” about the closure of St. Mary’s.

So far, according to Costa, he and his colleagues have conducted nearly 60 tours. All of those St. Mary’s parents, he said, took applications with them when they left.

Costa would only say that “quite a few” have decided to pay the $75 application fee in order to submit an application form on behalf of their children.

Lindsey Burbank, a Taunton single mom, was picking up her 4-year-old son Aiden, who attends kindergarten at St. Mary’s Primary School, on Thursday, April 12.

Burbank, 27, said she had not yet toured Our Lady of Lourdes, which is located in Taunton’s Weir Village neighborhood, but most likely will.

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to enroll him there,” she said.

“Am I going to be coming back to school here?” Aiden chimed in.

His mother told him that he would not but would probably see some of his classmates at the other school.

Costa says roughly half the students at Our Lady of Lourdes qualify for either financial aid or a scholarship.

Those include amounts ranging from $300 to $1,000 per academic year through the Fall River Diocese Foundation to Advance Catholic Education (FACE) program.

Tuition assistance is also available from the parish and from the Sister Margretta Sol Scholarship and the Knights of Columbus Monsignor James Coyle Scholarship.

Students at Our Lady of Lourdes, according to its website, received almost $40,000 in tuition assistance for the 2017-18 school year.

St. Mary’s Primary School has also offered a parish subsidy and tuition assistance from FACE, formerly known as St. Mary’s Education Fund.

No more fifth grade

The Diocese has decided to eliminate the fifth grade at Our Lady of Lourdes. St. Mary’s has also had fifth graders in its school.

Parents who want to send their kids to attend grade five in a Catholic school in the city will now have to enroll them in the middle school division of Coyle and Cassidy High School on Hamilton Street.

Costa said the elimination of grade five will help free up space for other students.

He notes that the number of fifth graders attending Our Lady of Lourdes has diminished so that there are now approximately only 20 students.

Classroom size will undoubtedly increase. Costa said he and Turner are prepared to eliminate what had been a numerical limit, or cap, of between 12 and 20 students per classroom.

He also anticipates there will be two second grades as result of students coming from St. Mary’s.

One of those new classrooms will replace what he says was an old resource computer room.

Computer tablets, he said, will from now on be mounted on portable carts, which Costa says has been common practice in recent years at St. Mary’s.

WiFi capability in the building, Costa added, is also going to be beefed up.

Building in good shape

The school, which opened in 1963, and at one time provided an emergency bomb shelter during the Cold War era, is solidly built and in good shape structurally speaking, Costa said.

If and when it becomes necessary to construct an addition to the building, he said it most likely will be added on and built atop the first-floor level where the main-door entrance of the otherwise two-story school is situated.

Costa said unlike St. Mary’s, Our Lady of Lourdes is financially and fiscally stable.

“We have no deficit,” he said, noting that enrollment has increased from 110 in 2012 to 142 in 2017.

Costa says total revenue, most of which comes from tuition fees, has been averaging $700,000. He said fundraising makes up about $100,000 of that amount.

There’s still an Our Lady of Lourdes parish convent across the street from the school.

Costa says three nuns, including a still-active 92-year-old former teacher, reside in the building — which until 2001 sat next to its namesake church that closed and merged with Sacred Heart Church to become Annunciation of the Lord Church.

An unpaved parking lot next to the convent is going to be paved in order to handle additional parking.

Costa also said a new playground area will be built on the side of the school, outside the window of the principal, and that another playground and recess area will be installed behind the school.

Students living in Taunton, he said, are able to ride public school buses provided by the city.

Others who live out of town, including as far away as Somerset and Fall River, depend on parents and other adults for rides, Costa said.

Costa said a plan will be devised to incorporate the color scheme of St. Mary’s clothing uniforms with the clothes worn by students at Our Lady of Lourdes.

And as a gesture of welcome, he said he expects there will be an opening ceremony for the new students with the inclusion of the symbol of St. Mary’s eagle mascot.

St. Mary's principal speaks

The principal of St. Mary's Primary School says as sad as it may seem to many people that his school is closing, it's worth noting that parents still have an option when it comes to where they send their kids to school.

"I think families are starting to understand it's not about a building closing, it's about being able to get a Catholic education," Michael O'Brien said.

O'Brien says he's "been in constant contact" with his Our Lady of Lourdes counterpart, Principal Turner, to create a more seamless transition for parents and students alike.

He said there so far have been two Vision Committe meetings with parents from both schools to discuss a variety of subjects, including dress attire.

O'Brien also says parents and students from the schools have been invited to attend a Pawtucket Red Sox STEM Student Days game on May 16 in order to "get the kids and families together."

And he says he and Turner have been coordinating a schedule whereby an entire grade of St. Mary's Primary students and their parents can get a tour of Our Lady of Lourdes.

O'Brien said he's accepted an offering from Coyle and Cassidy to return to his former job there as vice principal of grades five through eight.